The prime suspect in the 2005 disappearance of American teen Natalee Holloway flashed a smile as he was handed over to US authorities early Thursday.
Joran van der Sloot, 35, took off from Peru’s Jorge Chavez International Airport around 8 a.m. local time in the company of agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Fox News Digital reported.
Photos from the proceedings show the Dutch national appearing to smile in an Interpol vest alongside armed guards.
Van der Sloot has been in prison in Peru for more than a decade after pleading guilty to the May 2010 murder of student Stephany Flores.
He is being extradited to Birmingham, Alabama on charges of defrauding and extorting Natalee Holloway’s mother, Beth Holloway, that same year.
He is set to arrive on US soil by Thursday afternoon.
Van der Sloot, then 17, was one of the last people seen with Holloway, 18, who vanished after leaving a nightclub in Oranjestad, Aruba with him and two others on the night of May 30, 2005.
In May 2010, he allegedly promised to reveal the location of Holloway’s body in exchange for $250,000. The former high school soccer star subsequently led Beth Holloway’s lawyer to the site where he claimed her remains were hidden after receiving a $25,000 upfront payment, but later back-tracked on the bizarre tale.
He strangled Flores, 21, at a casino in Lima just a few days later on May 30, 2010 – exactly five years after Holloway disappeared.
Peruvian officials agreed in May to temporarily extradite van der Sloot to face the US charges.
Van der Sloot’s attorney, Maximo Altez, filed multiple appeals to stop the temporary extradition on the ground that his client was never notified of the open extradition process.
“He does not want to be extradited to the United States of America,” Altez said ahead of Thursday’s proceedings.
“He was visited today by his embassy (representatives) who made him see the mistake he was making by being extradited without due process.”
Altez also claimed that van der Sloot – who is currently trying to divorce the woman he married in prison in favor of a younger paramour – was severely beaten just weeks before the extradition.
Eighteen years after her disappearance sparked an international media frenzy, Natalee Holloway’s remains have still never been found. She was declared legally dead in Jan. 2012.
“I was blessed to have had Natalee in my life for 18 years, and as of this month, I have been without her for exactly 18 years. She would be 36 years old now,” Beth Holloway said in a statement last month.
“It has been a very long and painful journey, but the persistence of many is going to pay off. Together, we are finally getting justice for Natalee.”